As the worldwide energy consumption continues to grow, there has been a growing emphasis on the development of alternative energy sources. By 2050, it is estimated that one-third of the world's energy will come from solar, wind and other renewable energy sources. Climate change, population growth, and fossil fuel depletion mean that renewables will need to play a bigger role in the future than they do today. From an environmental perspective, solar power is the best thing going. A 1.5 kilowatt photovoltaic (PV) system will keep more than 110,000 pounds of carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, out of the atmosphere over the next 25 years. The same solar system will also prevent the need to burn 60,000 pounds of coal. With solar, there is not acid rain, no urban smog or pollution of any kind.
The growth of the solar power industry has been spurred recently by economic and tax incentives encouraging the use of alternatives to fossil fuels, lower cost photovoltaic (PV) panels and mounting systems, and greater availability of investment capital. Innovations in the design, engineering, and construction of large-scale PV systems have also tipped the balance in favor of going solar. One area where there has been much attention focused has been parking lots, which take up a substantial area of underutilized space. The solar power industry has attempted to put increasing amounts of that underutilized space to productive use; however, conventional attempts to mount solar panels on traditional parking lot structures fail to address the need to generate electrical power on a much larger commercial scale.
During the last few decades, the environmental impact of the petroleum-based transportation infrastructure along with increased cost of petroleum-based fuels has led to renewed interest in an electric transportation infrastructure. Electrically powered vehicles differ from fossil fuel-powered vehicles in that the electricity they consume can be generated from a wide range of sources, including fossil fuels, nuclear power, and renewable sources such as solar power, and wind power or any combination thereof. The electricity can be stored on board the vehicle using a battery, flywheel, or super capacitors. The primary means of storage on the vehicle are on-board rechargeable electric batteries. While a certain amount of electricity can be generated from excess kinetic energy during movement of the vehicle, the batteries are typically recharged while the vehicle is stationary and connected to a charging station.
Electric vehicle charging stations are elements in an infrastructure that supply electric energy for the recharging of plug-in electric vehicles, such as all-electric cars and plug-in hybrids. As plug-in hybrid electric vehicle and battery powered electric vehicle ownership expands, there is a growing need for widely distributed publicly accessible charging stations. While many charging stations are on-street facilities provided by electric utility companies, mobile charging stations have also been recently introduced. Some of the special charging stations provide one or a range of heavy-duty or special connectors or charging without a physical connection using parking places equipped with inductive charging mats.
However, current charging stations are typically powered by the existing electrical grid. As the popularity and use of electric vehicles increases, the demands on the electric grid will likewise also increase. Since the majority of electricity generated by the grid derives its source from fossil fuels, the energy derived therefrom also contributes pollutants to the atmosphere. Therefore, an electric vehicle charging station is needed wherein the electrical energy for charging the vehicle is derived from solar energy and preferably by a dedicated solar array. Unfortunately, the availability of electrical power for recharging vehicles while parked in a typical parking lot is very scarce.
In addition to the need for developing alternative energy sources, there is an ever-increasing need to address water scarcity, which has already affected every continent. Approximately 1.2 billion people, or almost one-fifth of the world's population, live in areas of physical scarcity, and an additional 500 million or so people are approaching this situation. Another 1.6 billing people, or almost one-fourth of the world's population, face economic water shortage (i.e., lacking the necessary infrastructure to take water from rivers and aquifers. Water scarcity is among the main problems to be faced by many societies in the 21st century. Water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population increase in the last century. Accordingly, similar to the need for developing renewable energy sources, there has been an increasing awareness and focus on developing means for harvesting water from rain and related precipitation. One common method of rainwater collection involves rooftop precipitation collection.
Accordingly, it would be highly desirable to develop a structural system that provides the benefits of a solar-collecting parking lot structures, but on a much broader scale, thereby addressing the power-generation limitations of existing structures. There is a crucial as of yet unmet need for such a structural system that could be easily and efficiently deployed atop the surface of a parking lot, yet in a manner that would not render the structure susceptible to damage from heavy winds (e.g., by utilizing a novel tower structure that is completely free of a conventional vertical sidewall design).
It would be even more desirable to provide such a modular system configured such that the collected solar energy power could be converted to useful electrical power easily transferred to a large-scale electrical power grid, while also providing the user with the option of using some of the collected solar energy to recharge electrically-powered vehicles parked beneath such a parking lot structure. Finally, it would be preferable that the system doubles as a means for conveniently collecting and storing potable water from weather precipitation.
The present invention provides a system that successfully addresses all of the aforementioned, previously unresolved, issues by way of a unique interlocking modular structure, particularly adapted for efficient and effective deployment upon a parking lot ground surface.